"How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends." - Herman Melville

There's that weird moment when you wake up and you're not sure whether you're in your own bed or not. Will adheres to a routine and takes for granted his body's ability to get him to his own bed on a nightly basis.

A side sleeper, his buried nostril tells him the pillow smells different. Not bad, just… masculine. A more potent form of familiar. His own sheets are flannel but these sheets are silky against his bare thighs –

He bolts upright. He normally wears a t-shirt and shorts to bed in case there's an emergency and he needs to corral the dogs and bolt from the house.

The curtains on the window are open, revealing a sun still trying to hide itself. The walls are cobalt blue and there's a warm weight on the right side of the bed. He looks over and immediately regrets it.

As much as Will needs the covers pulled up to his chin for modesty, Hannibal has the silk sheet only covering up to his navel. A tidy landscape of sandy and grey hair claims the expanse of his broad chest. It's bizarre to see a man who favours suits in such a relative state of undress—assuming he is dressed beneath the covers. Will would rather be impaled on a set of antlers than lift the covers to check. Even half-naked, Hannibal seems invulnerable. Will's heart flutters; it's like being inside the quiet belly of a whale, seeing what even the beast can't see. There is a certain excitement in the novelty of it. The first time Will kissed Alana was exciting, but only intellectually. Here, he feels it, lower. Deeper.

Will realizes he's staring and hastily checks to see if Hannibal's eyes are open.

They're shut. For now. Will may only have a few seconds to decide what to do.

Will squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his hands over his face, the way you'd clear a dusty computer monitor to get a better picture of what's on the screen.

There was the dining room… drinking… how many glasses of wine?

Technically one glass. Hannibal just kept refilling it. Will usually didn't drink more than one glass of wine—he'd been drinking more of it ever since he'd met Hannibal—but yesterday had been a particularly traumatizing day in the field and Hannibal had offered him a hand, an ear, and a shoulder at his dinner table. Perhaps Will had imbibed too much due to stress. Hannibal would never purposefully get him drunk, would he?

Of course Hannibal is too gracious a host to let someone drive home drunk. He wouldn't expect a guest to crash on the couch either. So did Hannibal invite him to share his bed or did Will drunkenly invite himself? There would be an inevitable conversation about this when Hannibal woke up. Unless Hannibal deemed it polite to avoid the subject. He was frustratingly unpredictable in his whims.

It would be rude to leave without saying goodbye and thanking him for tolerating him overstaying his welcome. He could get up and try to make breakfast or even coffee, escaping the bedroom but not actually offending Hannibal by leaving—but he doesn't trust himself to use something as simple as the sink without starting a fire in Hannibal's professional-grade kitchen.

Good morning Doctor, I was uncomfortable in your comfortable bed and too nonconfrontational to confront you about it, so I had to call the fire department. One sugar or two?

He wonders whether Hannibal always sleeps with the curtains open. Of course he's too much of an exhibitionist to feel exposed, as Will does, lying in a vulnerable state in front of a window. Will draws the bedsheet up to his chin and closes his eyes, thinking about how warm the bed is and how warm the dining room was last night, the way the scarlet wine swirled within glasses that never emptied and how Hannibal's dark eyes never strayed from his own.

He wakes up in that embarrassing halfway point when a cat nap accelerates into polar bear hibernation. His mouth is open against the pillow and his arm is all the way over on Hannibal's side of the bed. He realizes there's drool on his chin just as he hears—

"Good morning, Will. How are you feeling?"

Will grumbles with vague dissent and Hannibal tells him to stay while he fetches a glass of water. Will shuts his eyes so he won't have to see what Hannibal is or isn't wearing on his lower half.

He returns with a tumbler of ice water.

Hannibal waits for him to finish and then reaches over and takes it, his hand gently brushing against Will's for the briefest moment. "This isn't the first time I've had a man in my bed, nor is it the first time a friend has spent the night. You are welcome to stay as long as you like. I've made the necessary adjustments to my schedule. I never expect an overnight guest to evaporate along with the dew in the morning."

It's not enough for Hannibal to simply be a morning person, he has to be poetic at this hour too. Somehow it's not as frustrating as Will wants it to be. Will runs a hand through his mess of soft brown curls.

"I feel responsible for what happened last night," Hannibal says. "I was enjoying your company so much, I didn't have the heart to refuse your requests for more wine."

Will doesn't remember asking for more. "Thank you."

Hannibal contemplates him. "You would have preferred the guest room," he guesses, an apology in his tone.

"No. I've never liked sleeping alone." The words tumble out of Will's mouth before he can do anything about it.

"What do you like?"

Will hesitates.

Hannibal encourages, "I want to know more about you."

Will glances away with a small self-deprecating noise. "I'm not that interesting."

"On the contrary, you are one of the most fascinating people I have ever met."

His wolf's gaze penetrates him, opens him, digests every detail. Will shivers.

Hannibal puts a warm hand on his arm. "Are you cold?"

The touch. His eyes.

In all Will's years of making love to women, it hasn't felt half as intimate as simply this.

Will will analyze this moment for weeks afterwards.

He leans toward Hannibal. Then both of the other man's hands are around his waist.

Hannibal pushes him against the pillows, straddles him. "Do you view me as a friend?"

"Yes. No."

He grasps his chin and runs his thumb over his bottom lip. "How do you see me?"

"I think you're an interesting bedmate."

His eyes crinkle with a grin. Hannibal smiling like this is as rare as a lunar eclipse and twice as stunning. Will's glad he's lying down.

His canine teeth draw Will's attention. His heart races and there's a bit of fear in his blood.

Hannibal inhales, clasps his hand, kisses it. "You are beautiful." He pins that same hand above his head.

"Hannibal—"

Days from now, he will still be wearing one of Hannibal's scarves. People will stare.

His teeth sink into Will's neck.